Pop Producer Benny Blanco on His Sonic Style (Video)

Ke$ha’s “Die Young” and Rihanna’s “Diamonds” are currently nestled together in the Billboard Top 5. They are two very different songs with one thing in common: both were co-produced by Benny Blanco, a name that has become as common in pop credits as those of Dr. Luke, Stargate and other superproducers whose beats and hooks artists count on to stay atop the charts. Blanco has 13 No. 1 tracks to his name.

Born Benjamin Levin, the 24-year-old producer grew up in Reston, Va., where the “music nerd” developed an ear for the ingredients of his favorite songs. After he discovered that many of the stars he was listening to didn’t write their own music, he started investigating the lesser-known professionals at the controls.

“I would buy cassette tapes and circle every producer and engineer and put them on my wall. And then I’d try to guess who was on the song just by listening for their different styles,” he recalls.

His own sound, which evolved through work with collaborators such as rapper Spank Rock and Dr. Luke, can be heard on songs by Maroon 5 (“Moves Like Jagger,” “Payphone”), Wiz Khalifa (“Work Hard, Play Hard”) and Katy Perry (“California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream”).

“I want the listener to hear every part. The drums. The sound of every intricacy. The smartest thing I ever learned was to give [the singer] space” on the track,” he says.

Instead of working out of a conventional recording studio, which are typically windowless caves, he does much of his recording in his apartment near 23rd Street in Manhattan, where light pours through windows and the sound of traffic and construction filters up from the street. In the room where he works on tracks at his computer, there’s a microphone in the corner for vocals and a small bed strewn with fluffy pillows.

“Who wants to write in a cold studio when you can lie on a bed and write? I want to make music in my underwear. Sometimes we write on the roof,” he says.

On a recent morning, Blanco was on the job by 9, wearing blue overalls. In a video interview, he talked about his sonic style, his fascination with the vintage electronic instruments filling the shelves in his room, and the way he uses those old keyboards–some of them originally made for kids–to make his songs sound unusual.